The one absolutely unselfish friend
that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts
him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog –
George Graham Vest (1870)
Joe Fortemose Chinakwe, the man who
named his dog after President Muhammadu Buhari is right now probably
regretting his decision to honour his dog with the name of a man he
considers his hero. He has been accused of trying to incite hate and
breach the public peace. He has been arrested and re-arrested by the
police and taken to a magistrate court, which promptly remanded him in
prison until he is able to meet the conditions of his bail.
He has spent
days in prison custody unable to raise the N50, 000 that he has been
asked to pay. His family members have only so far managed to raise N20,
000. Even if he succeeds in putting that sum together, his life is
still in danger because aggrieved persons in his neighbourhood,
including a man who says he was trying to ridicule his father, have
threatened to kill him, if he shows up. The police are not investigating
this threat, but they seem so excited about dealing with the poor
trader called Joe, for having the effrontery to name his dog, Buhari.
To protect himself, Joseph has allegedly
put the dog to sleep, or thrown it away or whatever, in the hope that
once the evidence is destroyed there will be no case against him. It is
all so pitiable. Public opinion appears to be divided as to the nature
and seriousness of Joseph Chinakwe’s alleged felony, with some people
arguing that it is definitely an act of provocation and incitement for
him to label his dog, Buhari so boldly and to parade the same dog in a
neighbourhood where there are many residents of Northern extraction,
whose feelings may be injured or who may perceive that he is trying to
make a political statement.
Those who want him punished have
therefore dismissed Chinakwe’s protestation that he is an admirer of the
President, or that he means well. His defenders insist that he is
entitled to free speech and there is nowhere in the statutes where a man
can be punished on the basis of the perception that some people’s
feelings may be injured, and hence, be prompted to commit murder. The
law is not structured that way.
We are dealing, therefore with ethnic
hate at the lunatic fringe. Nigerians have become so suspicious of one
another, and inter-ethnic relationship is so poisonous that even the
littlest innocent gesture could result in mayhem. This is why many have
been killed for allegedly committing blasphemy or for insulting the
religious sensibilities of some people. Remember the woman who was
killed by her students for allegedly desecrating the Quoran. Remember
Gideon Akaluka. Remember the woman who was recently beheaded in Abuja
for daring to preach the Christian gospel. We are also dealing with
disregard for human freedom, and Nigeria’s slip into a tragic season of
intolerance. Why shouldn’t Chinakwe call his dog whatever name catches
his fancy? Well, may be he should have chosen an Igbo name? But if we
want national unity, why shouldn’t he take a name he admires from
another part of the country?
Ali Baba, the ace comedian, like many
others, has come out strongly in defence of Chinakwe saying he actually
has a dog in his house named OBJ, and that is quite direct because only
one man bears that sobriquet in this country, and neither OBJ nor his
kinsmen have asked Atuyota to leave Yorubaland. One of the most famous
pictures online is that of a goat named Goodluck Jonathan, with the name
written on both flanks of it. President Jonathan’s wife was also once
(July 2013) referred to as “shepopotamus” by Nobel Laureate Wole
Soyinka, and before our very eyes, President Olusegun Obasanjo, donated,
to a conservation sanctuary, a chimpanzee, which he named Patience to
make a point obviously.
The parody at the time was unmistakable.
We all drew humour from all of that. What we seem to be dealing with
right now, however, is the absurd deification of a name on ethnic and
partisan grounds. It is curious that the Nigeria Police is devoting to
the trial of Chinakwe, a feverish amount of energy that we have not
witnessed with regard to more statutorily relevant offences. This
hullaballoo over the giving of a dog a name that has led to its hanging
and the likely punishment of its owner is one distraction too many. We
are above all else, dealing with a storm in a tea cup, occasioned by a
culture shock, and our underdeveloped understanding of the relationship
between man and animals.
Chinakwe says he chose the name Buhari
out of admiration. And he may well be right, and he would have been
right, and there would have been no problem if he was living in Europe
or North America. But he lives in a country where animals have no rights
and no recognition other than as victims of human predators, and a dog
in our culture is to be treated as an instrument or as meat for the soup
pot. Elsewhere, a dog has earned its reputation in mythology and
actuality, as a man’s best friend. The root of this is that a dog is
considered the most beloved, the most loyal and the most dependable of
all animals. People use dogs to guard their homes, to keep away
intruders, even to play with children and as companions in the home.
There are many stories and legends about the loyalty of dogs. Hawkeye is
the name of a famous dog who lay next to the casket of its owner who
died in active service as a US Navy SEAL.
There is a film, “Hachi, a dog’s tale,”
starring Richard Gere, about Hachiko, a dog who greeted his owner at the
train station everyday and after the owner died, the dog went to the
same station for nine years. Recently, I posted on instagram the picture
of a dog in Santa Catarina, Brazil, Negao the dog, whose owner died
eight months earlier and the dog remained outside the hospital awaiting
his owner’s return. In the United States, a police dog has been given a
state burial, draped with national colours in appreciation of its loyal
and meritorious service to the nation. Many centuries ago, Homer wrote
in Odyssey, about a loyal dog, Argos who waited for Odysseus until he returned.
The established normal is that a dog can
be trusted more than a human being. And this is why in other parts of
the world, when people name their dogs after celebrities, they are
actually paying compliments and showing respect. World figures like
Elvis Presley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Louis Vuitton, Mandela, Clinton, J.
F. Kennedy and others have had their names given to either cats or dogs,
and it is no big deal. Admirers transpose their feelings from man to
animal. Joseph Chinakwe may actually be saying that President Buhari is a
loyal, trustworthy, supportive, dependable and companionable Guardian
of the Nigerian estate. It would have been a different thing perhaps if
he had given that name to a tortoise, a rat, cat, a fox, or a
chimpanzee. But in a country where every animal is considered a prey or a
lower, spiteful creature, using the metaphor of a dog could be risky as
the Chinakwe case has shown. In Nigeria, we treat animals badly, and we
don’t consider anyone a friend, man or animal. We are vengeful, mean
and suspicious. We are so scared we are even afraid of domestic and
domesticated animals.
In other societies, animals are treated
with greater respect and in the United States for example, the life of a
dog is far superior to that of a human being in Nigeria. I have
written about this twice: In “A Dog’s Life” (1996), I reflected on the
life of a dog owned by Stanley Meisler (God bless his soul) and his
wife, Elizabeth Fox, my hosts during my journalism programme at the
University of Maryland, College Park, United States (1996 -97). I was
shocked that the dog had a room of its own, a proper room, not a kernel,
and whenever that dog fell ill, we took him to a dog hospital and
Stanley bought drugs. I saw that dog living the life of a king, better
catered for than many Africans.
I wrote another piece titled “A Hotel
for Dogs” (July 23, 2006) about a five-star hotel in Bethesda,
Washington, which attends to dogs as customers, and where dogs enjoy a
life of luxury. Established in 2003, by PetSmart Inc., by 2006, there
were 32 hotels of its type in the United States and the then spokesman
of the group, Bruce Richardson, had boasted that by 2010, the plan was
to have 240 such hotels across the United States. We are talking luxury,
23 USD per night, 33USD for a dog suite, as at that time, all pre-tax,
plus provisions for pooch ice cream. In general, Americans spend about
$40 billion dollars a year on household pets. I guess that is more than
Nigeria’s annual budget even by today’s relative standards.
And so, what are we talking about? An
American dog is a big man in Nigeria by all standards. But because we
eat dogs and treat all animals badly in this country, in fact we have no
regard for human beings (consider the hundreds that get killed, raped,
kidnapped daily and nobody cares), we are bound to be incensed that
anyone would name a dog after a deified political figure. Joe
Chinakwe’s sins should be forgiven, albeit there is no morality in law,
but the Nigerian judiciary should not expose itself to further ridicule
by lending the weight of the law to such partisan trash that makes no
sense. There are far more important issues requiring serious attention
in this country today.
But in case nobody understands that and
Mr Chinakwe and his counsel find themselves in a tight corner, they
should put out a disclaimer and say their dog, living or dead, is filing
for a change of name. That is perfectly within their rights to do. And
should they find themselves in any other difficult situation, they have
my full permission to rename the dog, Reuben Abati. But should you, dear
reader consider this a bad name you wish to hang, you also have my full
support, partnership and friendship to offer your own name.
If that will put an end to this circus
over the name of a dog, and set Joseph Chinakwe free, and also remind us
that we are in a democracy, please, help and so be it. By the way, I
hear Chinakwe and his sympathisers finally managed, after a fund-raising
appeal, to raise a sum of N90, 000 to perfect his bail bond and that he
is now out of detention. Would somebody in a responsible position just
put an end to this joke and let us focus on serious issues?
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